Each business day HedgeCo.Net keeps you informed with the top hedge fund industry news, opinion and insight from around the globe. From the latest hedge fund launches, to the impact of regulation, competition, and investor activism - we track the topics and people that make a difference to you.
HedgeCo.net (West Palm Beach) – Uzbekistan hedge fund manager, Ansher Fund Management, has reported that their flagship hedge fund, Ansher Regional Property Fund, (ARPF) has maintained its performance moderately stable at –0.37% during April-June 2009 despite the still lagging property markets around the globe.
"Property markets in the region, especially Kazakhstan residential segment, continued slowing in the quarter owing to still limited or expensive mortgage facilities for buyers," Khurshid Kholov, fund manager and CIO said. "However, the decline rate in the region has been slower during the 2nd quarter as compared with previous quarters, showing signs of market recovery. Thanks to active portfolio management ARPF is still up by 0.80% since inception, thus comfortably outperforming all three benchmarks."
Despite the fact that the economy of Kazakhstan has been under pressure amid the global financial turmoil, a slight signs of economic recovery has been observed in the country, the fund manager said. It’s expected that the GDP of this oil rich country will not post negative growth for the year 2009, owing to currently recovering oil and commodity prices in the world markets.
This is the result of the antirecessionary measures the Government undertook in which $25 billion of funds were injected into the economy. About $4 billion out of this amount was directed particularly into the real estate sector of the country.
ARPF has seen new investment opportunities in the hotel sector after the residential real estate market dropped out. "The hotel sector is immature and currently existing 4 five star hotels in Almaty operate with 90% occupancy rate," ARPF said.
A sharp deficit is expected to emerge with the Asian Winter Games which will take place in Almaty in 2011. Real estate sector of this energy house country still offers promising investment opportunities for property investors in the long term.
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
Reuters UK – Most strategies employed by hedge fund managers globally failed to generate positive returns in June as stock markets moved sideways and commodity prices slid during the month, according to estimates from Lipper on Tuesday.
The best-performing hedge fund strategy was "convertible arbitrage" which returned 0.28 percent, while the worst-performing strategy was "managed futures" which lost 1.59 percent. Long/short equity hedge funds declined 0.23 percent.
Overall, nine of the 13 strategies tracked by Lipper lost money last month.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge funds took modest advantage of March’s upswings in the global equity and credit markets, according to Morningstar’s hedge fund performance summary for the first quarter of 2009.
Equity markets around the world significantly rebounded in March as appetite for risk returned, especially in emerging markets, according to the report. Positive lending and manufacturing news in China coupled with higher commodity prices, which helped stocks in other emerging economies such as Russia, drove the Morningstar MSCI Emerging Markets and Morningstar Emerging Markets Hedge Fund Indexes to increase 4.2% and 6.2%, respectively.
"In March we saw a recovery in equity and some credit markets, which helped hedge funds post small gains. But many hedge fund managers, believing that the economy is not yet out of hot water, continued to remain cautious, and were not strongly positioned to participate in the market rally," said Nadia Papagiannis, Morningstar hedge fund analyst. The Morningstar MSCI Developed Markets Hedge Fund Index rose only 1.1% in March compared to the MSCI World Index, which climbed 7.2%.
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
Forbes – Commodity prices will remain low for a long time, possibly up to 7 years because of the global recession and falling demand, hedge fund Red Kite told a British newspaper.
Michael Farmer founder of Red Kite, a big player in the industrial metals markets, told the Financial Times the world economy has gone from boom to bust and that markets are going to be bust for a while.
Investors Chronicle – 2008 witnessed a boom and bust of monumental proportions in the junior mining and oil and gas sectors. From being among the London market’s strongest performers, driven by record commodity prices, resources stocks plummeted out of favour even more rapidly to languish among the market’s laggards.
Although strong recovery is unlikely in the short term, the longer term outlook for resources remains bullish. The world will run on oil for many years to come, and analysts estimate a $70-80/barrel oil price is needed to drive sufficient exploration and supply to satisfy likely demand when economies recover. Growth-driven Asian demand for all commodities, though slowing, has in all probability built up an unstoppable momentum.
Supply-side constraints plus the possibility of a weakening dollar and further falls in equities will create upward price pressure on oil, gold and other commodities. Commodities may start to recover during the year, depending on the severity and duration of the recession. Even if they don’t, continued low prices will deter exploration and development, and cause supply shortages, which will simply store upward price momentum to be released when economies eventually do recover. What’s more, the depth of the current downturn suggests that post-recession demand could rapidly create supply pressures, an over-correction and renewed price shocks.
